The Syllable in English and Arabic: a contrastive Study

b. The Plus Theory 
It is also called The Motor Theory and it was introduced by Stanson in 
(1928). It is concerned with the muscular activity controlling the movement 
of the lungs during speech production. This theory claims that in any 
utterance there are a number of chest pulses, accompanied by increases in air 
pressure, which determine the number of the syllables uttered. According to 

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764
رتمؤلما عئاقو
ينلعلا
لولاا
وولعلل
ةيىاشىلاا
يضاترفلاا
ةعمالجا /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك /
ٌواعتلابو ةيرصيتشلما
عم
ةعماج /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك
راق يذ
02
- 
02
ٌاريزح
0202
و
( راعش تتح
ًكنتيل..... هلعتى
)
رتمؤلما عئاقو
ينلعلا
لولاا
وولعلل
ةيىاشىلاا
يضاترفلاا
/
ةيرصيتشلما ةعمالجا /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك
عم ٌواعتلابو
ةعماج /ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك
راق يذ
02
 -
02
 
زح
ٌاري
0202
خيراتب
61
/
4
/
0202
ةيساسلاا ةيبترلا ةيلك ةلمج
ةيرصيتشلما ةعمالجا
this theory, the syllable rather than the sound is the basic unit of speech. With 
the consonant at its margins, a syllable has a central vowel which renders the 
pulse audible (Gimson, 1975: 56). 
Abercrombie (1967: 40) clarifies that the syllable has three phases: the 
starting chest pulse phase, the passage of the air through the vocal tract, and 
the conclusion of the movement of this air coinciding with the beginning of 
another chest pulse. The syllable in this case is defined as "the product of the 
way the pulmonic airstream mechanism works; its basis is a chest pulse on 
which are superimposed the articulatory movements and the allied 
movements of the vocal cords and velum which produce segments". 
Gimson (1975: 56) assumes that the number of chest pulses, accompanied 
by an increase of air pressure, can determine the number of syllables. 
Nevertheless, this approach has its shortcoming as it cannot account for cases 
when two vowels occur one after the other as in a word like "being" /bi:inŋ/. 
In such a case, the second chest pulse might be almost irrelevant; a matter 
which leads to the mistaken conclusion that such a word consists of one 
syllable only.